Tollund Men - Autoerotik

There is something about this release that I find very hypnotic and mesmerizing; there is definitely a sense of mystery here, which I absolutely love - it isn't something you see all to often in these glory days of the information age! Couple the fact that this cassette release meanders within itself as much as it leads with hypnotic rhythms, and you have the perfect recipe for pulsating electronic work. The "cassette" quality sound of the sound make it hard to differentiate whether this has been composed on analogue or digital equipment, but the density of the tape sound really adds to the overall atmospheric. Beautiful stuff. If you can track down an original tape, I strongly recommend that you snap it up.

Pharmakon - Bestial Burden

I feel like I have an overwhelming urge to trepan my skull in order to fully envelope my conscious with the buzzing, numbing industrial stomp of Pharmakon's "music". I'm joking of course, but it kinda feels like the human brain alone isn't powerful enough to digest this disgustingly intense mix of industrial, power electronics and ambience. Pharmakon is not afraid to balance the serene and low-key alongside the bashing, crashing havoc of sheer noise, and that pays off in spades on Bestial Burden.

The artwork just plain creeps me out, too. Is it an autopsy? Is it a strange mediterranean salad? Is it both? Why am I hungry all of a sudden? Why are we even alive? ...Anyway, I digress. Harsh noise enthusiasts are no doubt already familiar with Pharmakon's offerings, however I would also recommend this to fans of horror movie scores, or ominous soundtracking in general. This shit is plain creepy, but it isn't afraid to get loud either.

Consumer Electronics - Estuary English

I love power electronics and noise but when this came out I completely lost it....what the fuck is actually going on? Estuary English is one of those rare records that I completely fail to understand, so I wrote it off for a while, completely unable to comprehend what I was listening to. It just sounded like Vyvyan from the Young Ones screaming over sub par bits and blips of electronic mush. If that's what you want from your music then by all means Consumer Electronics are the band for you, but I had to duck out and then back into with an extremely open mind.

On the second run through I kinda started to get it; it almost sounds like Ramleh if you replace the walls of analogue noise with blippy digital crap (edit: the vocalist here, Philip Best, did have a stint in Ramleh). But y'know, it still kinda sounds like somebody just shouting over crap digital noise rather than anything that offers some kind of substance. I hate giving bad reviews, but this just isn't for me.

Gnaw Their Tongues - Abyss Of Longing Throats

(Words by Doomfinder General)

I'd never heard of Gnaw Their Tongues until I saw them live at Roadburn and I was almost instantly blown away by them (I say them - it's just one guy making so much horrible music from his basement). A mix of black metal and noise would probably be the best way to describe this but then again so would two people screaming at you when the sound of the world ending at million miles per hour plays in the background. so when i got home pretty much the first thing I had to do was find the newest album by them.

Abyss Of Longing Throats is a more darker and restrained beast than I was expecting, with opener "Lick The Poison From The Cave Walls" going at not much more than a crawl. The music is mostly various horrible noises in the background with intermittent black metal style vocals. You have to wait until track 3 to get any blast beats, giving the music almost an illusion of being straight black metal but with an industrial hint.

The rest of the album doesn't really deviate from that formula as such, going from slow horrible noise to, well, faster horrible noise, all the while having vocals screamed at you. But it's amazing nothing else in the world really sounds like it so go give it a listen.

Merzbow - Cycle

Look at all that lovely sand! Well, one assumes it's sand - like the coloured sand you hammer into crappy glass bottles on family holidays to the beach. No? Well fuck you.

Cycle is a pulsing, circular throb of a noise session, that loops and dives into waves of repetition and (yes) cycles; the palpable worm Ouroboros in wave format, writhing itself in undulations of sonic ecstasy. Yeah. At least, that is what part one sounds like. I expected more of the same from part two (because Merzbow really loves more of the same) but alas I was mistaken - part two starts with a building ambiance of muted synth noise before casually falling apart into a cacophony of what at first appears to be a succession of random sounds.

What's fascinating is, is that as the final stages of the record progress, the blips and hisses firing from all corners of the aural spectrum begin to sound like wildlife (edit: this record is rumored to include recordings of Merzbow's personal pet chickens). It is as if you are listening to a machine simulation of the Mekong Delta at sunset, rather than a harsh noise record.

Torturing Nurse - Nonentity

Nonentity is a grating, deafening displaying of analogue harsh noise broken down in to three consumable parts. The first part hisses and belches the way good noise should, before the second track “Abuse” provides us with a break that, in all honesty, seems to come a little bit too soon. The third part kicks back in for a final 15 minute push through a seascape of bubbling static bliss. I find myself trying to loop it over in my head, searching for patterns and meaning. But, like most harsh noise, there isn’t one. Just total sonic annihilation. And then it’s over.

Nonentity comes in a really fancy DVD-sized case with full artwork and even includes a little booklet choc-full of further xeroxed imagery; a disturbing tangible accompaniment to the aural freakshow that is Torturing Nurse. There’s a ton of harsh noise out there these days, but Torturing Nurse is some of the best. Check out Palinopsia Recordings who put this release together. 

Ramleh - 31/5/1962 - 1982

What I usually associate with Ramleh is an unstoppable barrage of power electronics and barked vocal eruptions. Which is exactly what we’ve got here. This does not disappoint. Catching them live with Godflesh a few years ago literally (and physically) blew me away. I am, however, pleasantly surprised by the static, choppy, experimental nature of how 31/5/1962 – 1982 starts off, which leads into a much more digestible forty minutes or so than the more Vomir-like facebash of powerful noise walls. What is on play here seems like more fun experimentation with delays, loops, basic distortions and pulsating rhythms, until the vocals kick in and destroy everything, at least. 

It does eventually meander into the dangerous, volatile territory of barked vocal blurs and mental sheets of noise attacks with the self-titled track, “Ramleh” and also “Deathtoll”, but on “Throatsuck” for example, the vocals are used in a much more atmospheric approach, almost like another "instrument", if you could call it that. Despairing shit. 

An apparent power electronics classic, dodgy album art or no. 

MZ. 412 – In Nomine Dei Nosti Satanas Luciferi Excelsi

I came across MZ. 412 on my quest for bands that mix black metal with power electronics. Although to me MZ. 412 takes elements from both genres of music (with both being quite introspectively similar in some respects and also a million miles apart in others), yet it seems to stand alone from both in a sound more rooted in industrial, or experimental ambience.

This is something morosely militant about In Nomine... which lends heavily from the martial side of power electronics, and yes, the repetitive beats are distorted and overpowering, but that’s where the similarities end, for me at least. This creepy, isolated record is more akin to the soundtrack for some independent horror movie rather than anything along the lines of A Blaze In The Northern Sky.

I write lots of words and post the pretty pictures but realistically the music itself needs to do the talking. Mad props to Dave Wilson for introducing me to the world of MZ. 412.

Hecker - Recordings For Rephlex

(words by Kristian Cole, Merthyr Tydfil's very own laureate of the digital noise revolution)

As we are inclined to wash the feet of the beggars John Cage (American Tramp) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (German Weirdo) I cannot help but think what shit they pulped out over their years of sound production. Cage and Stockhausen, both from academic musical backgrounds, may have seemed ground breaking to the other chin rubbing fucksnouts who pretended to understand their take on 'music' and assembled themselves in Europe's café's to discuss the preceding minimalism which was rolled across their cochleas in null tones. "Fuck mainstream, I'm academic!" Of course you are. I pat you on the head as you use musical instruments in non musical ways. 

The avant-garde was born and rolled on into the underground when the first noisefag chained a few distortion pedals together and amped that fucker to the three gig attendees, who in turn rubbed their chins in faux-understanding. Hooray, academic experimentation had been assimilated and reborn in the underground! Ok, I jest...there is certainly a connection with Throbbing Gristle's first punk gigs, the art world, right time, right place, London, yadda, yadda, yadda, industrial, noise, power electronics, yadda, yadda, yadda. I can only assume by the time Florian Hecker had arrived in the academic arena (studying Computational Linguistics and Psycholinguistics at Ludwig Maximilian Universität, Munich, and Fine Arts at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna) the use of the Supercollider app was a free download with his course and although he may have been too pissed to use it around freshers week, he certainly used it mid term of the first year. Supercollider enables digital noise to take place using code and the copy and paste method of code to file, save as, etc.

Of course I am jealous, Florian sits within the art world as well as the underground, and fuck that is something I yearn for. His dealings with Rephlex Records and Aphex Twin certainly garnered enough street cred to take this Germanic genius and place him, anorak and all, into a realm of exposure that highlights how electronic music can be deciphered and displayed to us Luddite's with charm. Noisefags may chain a thousand pedals together and stand back in awe of their own pomposity but Hecker explains it with an actual interest in the subject (see Liner Notes). Hecker's main instrumentation on this very album is produced by laptop and supercollider application. Not a pedal in sight and good fucking riddance to analog purists. Long live digital noise and its programmatic constructs. We are all a copy and paste away from white noise screaming through the backbone of a PA. 

The scope of digital noise is unfathomable as its multiple range of frequency ranges can be mined indefinitely, looped, arpeggiated and aligned with the time of day as a global variable. Yet we still have noisefags jamming a soldering iron up a Teddy Ruxpin doll's arsehole for self satisfaction; boring childish cunts, come dream digital noise with me tonight.

The liner notes certainly divulge the albums processes, lets take a look:

1. Hénon Map & Gingerbread Man (Linear Edit) 

Gingerbread man

Henon map

Starting from my previous works using dynamic synthesis for sound generation, I was intrigued to use nonlinear differential equations to generate chaotic signals. Although complex equations are frequently used in algorithmic composition to define pitch or note selection criteria, their use as a source for direct sound synthesis is rather unpopular. This recording is based on the Hénon map and gingerbreadman functions. The sonification of these equations offers a wide spectrum of sounds ranging from simple sine waves to coloured chaotic noises. These are different from 'classic' noises such as white, brown or pink noise due to their features of nonlinearity and feedback. 

06:26 

Kristian says "Hecker used noise objects to produce noise. Code was written...or copied and pasted. Noise music placed in the context of actual beats, not club worthy but still a piercing slab of digital noise, an ear bleeder at the right volume. In your car you may be able to get the same effect whilst searching for radio stations."

2. Pulsar Wg'lett 

This short track was produced for the second Götoborg Biennial 2002. It was generated entirely with the 'PulsarGenerator' software, a framework for a speciality particle synthesis developed by Curtis Roads and Alberto de Campo. Subsequently it was edited in a two channel audio editing software. 

03:46 

 

Curtis Roads and Alberto de Campo ^ ^ ^, they are actually two different people just same specs.

Kristian says "Both left and right stereo spectrums have been used to place noise music in. Imagine the initial stereo recordings of the 60's, replace the bowl hair cut mummy Beatle boy cunts with aimless scraping blips and beeps, Uncle bob is your Uncle."

3. Precedence
For his 2004 Solo exhibition in Marseilles, Carsten Höller asked me to contribute a sound piece. Shortly before this invitation I started researching on psychoacoustic effects using time delay, and therefor came across the precedence effect. I produced a series of seven percussive, rhythmical tracks, eventually named Höller Tracks, all of them based on short sequences of pulsars, synthesized with 'PulsarGenerator'. The one featured on this album is the edit which was also used in the exhibition. Additionally to the constantly alternating shift between a lagging click in one channel and a leading click in the other channel, each channel was phase inverted every few seconds to add higher spatiality and increase spatiotemporal confusion. 
04:17 

Kristian says "Hecker used delays over left and right stereo fields. more info on the Precedence Effect here. You can download PulseGenerator from the network."

4. Acid 245; Ph.Inv 9T2 

She will not like this

Produced for the 3rd Berlin Biennial 2003. 

05:38 

Kristian says "Accccciiiiiiiiiiiiiidddddd.......if you were on a fucking downer."

5. C 04 05 I_μdd 

05:02 

Kristian says "Aphex Twin style track naming process. Harsh."

6. 4G5EQ 94825492426.7531 

00:55 

Kristian says "Aphex Twin style track naming process. Shrieking."

7. In Actu (Create 7.1 Edit) 

Here's how you fuck shit up.

This piece is centered around an edit of a live performance at the Bartos Theatre, MIT Media Lab in May 2004. This recording features extensively all the processes and techniques I've been using, namely pulsar synthesis, waveset processing, dynamic stochastic synthesis and chaotic synthesis. The editing strategy I applied was made in close memory of Bruce Gilbert's albums Ab Ovo (Mute, CD STUMM 117, 1996) and In Esse (Mute, CD STUMM 171, 1997). 

12:21 

Kristian says "Fucking shit up."

8. Wippi 

02:53 

Kristian says "Piercing. Future power electronics...now!"

Conclusion:

Mentioning the word 'meaning' in the same sentence as the word 'Noise' blows the brains out of noisefags who take every word in the dictionary as gospel. "Noise is non data! meaningless!" What it should be is "Noise is academic! I only learned how to chain pedals two days ago!" Hecker may have never heard of power electronics but this surely crosses that boundary. All he needs is a few reference sto serial killers and an image of a stabbed prostitute or two and you would have a sheer classic.

Beyond all the brain pulsating literature here is a Rephlex fan's comment (got this off the internet):

"I have collected "electronic music" since early 1991 and now have over 4000 records and cds, just in this category. From Xenakis to Autechre - I listen to everything electronic that I can get my hands on. I also own nearly every release that Rephlex has produced thus far. I felt the need to preface this comment with that information because I believe this to be the single most pointless "thing" that Rephlex has yet released (topping Lektrogirl with EASE!). It's not music, by any means. You could call it "experimentation", if you like to experiment with ramming sewing needles in your ears while machines bleep and blare aimlessly around you at deafening levels. I honestly did not find ONE second of this release to be enjoyable. Ya know those "noise" tracks on the AFX Men releases? Extend that silliness over 35 minutes or so and you'll be getting close. There's a bit more variety to these tracks, but they're still ear splitting nonsensical noise. Now, if this is your thing, great! You should pick this up with a quickness. But if you're looking for some good old-fashioned Braindance, this ain't it."

Auerbach - She's Worth It

Auerbach is one of a gazillion projects by Merthyr Tydfilian / Aberdare-ian (yeah, I can make up my own words now) Kristian Cole. I sit next to this cunt most days in work placement so I might come across a bit biased as I review one of his creations, but I say with all the honesty in my blackened heart that this is a seriously harsh aural assault of the senses. He goes by many names and guises, but I believe that Auerbach is one of the original aliases he came up with. She's Worth It is a puzzling, perhaps worrying exercise in harsh noise; ear-splitting distortion meets feral soundscapes and brooding noise collages. 

Definitely one for the more seasoned noise aficionado, She's Worth It may reduce less experienced noise mongers down to nothing more than a bubbling pile of mysterious goo that may or may not look like semen with acid in it. Yeah.

Theologian - The Chasms Of My Heart

It's nice to see something that bridges the gap between industrial, power electronics and harsh noise so perfectly. Often these terms are bandied about wantonly, with several terms being used to describe the same thing in a pedantic circle jerk of an already restrictive genre. Whilst I still don't quite know what the fuck Witch House is supposed to be, I can literally feel the industrial vibe pouring out of this record, like steel girders shooting out of my computer screen and impaling my face, but in a good way.

Yes, this is a noise record, but it earns the industrial or power electronics tags due to the sheer palpable feel of the tracks, like genuine mechanical beasts have come alive to create these horrendous cacophonies. Some of these "songs" even seem to hold their own sense of beauty, despite being mind-numbingly repetitive and gargantuan in scope. "My Body Is Made Of Ash...I Live As Ash" for example, is so anxious that it's almost relaxing.

There's guitar in there somewhere I'm sure, as well as a clusterfuck of distorted voices. Some moments are repetitive to the point of an almost tribalistic percussion, which when made out of mashed up sound, is actually extremely impressive.

Because The Chasms Of My Heart manages to be a enthralling noise masterpiece without having to resort to continuous maxed-out harshness, I'd wager this is a good a place as any to start with the noise genre, if you fancy giving it a go. To summarise: a very impressive and hypnotising record in a seriously over-saturated and often lazy genre of music.

Facialmess - Total Liberation

Facialmess is a harsh noise project from Japan. Total Liberation is an EP that was released a few years ago on J Randall's Grindcore Karaoke, consisting of two tracks, a 7 minuter and a 13 minuter. "Suspicious Activities" starts off by oddly mashing together droning, machine-like background ambience with increasingly-erratic cuttings of harsh noise. It just jolts back and forth without any regard for your hearing, or sanity for that matter. It sounds to me like somebody has nominated a supercomputer for the ice bucket challenge, and we are listening to the resulting meltdown.

"Unremitting Exploitation" starts in a similar manner, only when the electronic short-circuitry cuts out, we are left with ominous silence. The way this all fits together I'd hazard a guess that this noise was constructed on a series of pedals rather than digitally (definitely seems to be a lot of delay pedal effects going on). The way the noise keeps cutting out randomly makes this release seem a lot longer than it actually is. I love the way that Facialmess is constantly fucking with your head but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little bit tiring.

All in all, a wicked harsh noise / power electronics release that's well worth a listen if you're into audible torture.

Fire Walk With Me - ストリートウォーカー

Warning - shameless plug!

Whilst I surely can't review my own material, I can tell you fuckers a little bit about it. With the death of Life Is Easy I've started a whole bunch of new musical ventures, including Fire Walk With Me; a project born out of my new love affairs with David Lynch's Twin Peaks and HNW music, if such a crossover isn't too bold. What I've done here however is attempted somewhat at creating texture within harsh noise wall. Basically I recorded a harsh noise wall passage of about 44 minutes, achieved my desired distortion and decided that it just wasn't enough, so I built on that passage with a further 7 more layers of harsh noise (you can hear them all kicking in within the first five minutes or so).

As amazing as 8 layers of HNW playing at the same time sounds, I quickly learned that putting noise on top of noise just results in more noise - but it is a hellish, claustrophobic, repetitive, hopeless, self-depreciating 44 minutes that you will never get back, if you're into that kind of thing. ストリートウォーカー basically translates to 'street walker', be it tramp... junkie... prostitute......vampire......

Stream the entire thing for free, or tapes are available for £3 with a much bassier and versatile mix (created by my tape dubbing machine, which has a mind of it's own). 

Vomir - Renonce

Vomir is currently my new favourite go-to name when I fancy a harsh noise massage for my brain and my ever-growing tinnitus. I guess focussing entirely on some endless static attack helps ease the ringing for some reason or other. Anyway, I digress. Vomir is (as far as my knowledge of this scenes goes) the absolute master of the harsh noise wall (often abbreviated to HNW). If you're wondering what HNW is, well, imagine that if harsh noise could get any bleaker, more hopeless, more utterly, utterly soul destroying and crushing? Nope? Can't imagine that? Press play below and find out.

No variation, no fannying about, just straight up fucking horrendous tones of distortion pummelling your face for 50 minutes flat. Making it through the whole thing is a tremendous test of patience, and at high volumes often made me feel moments of claustrophobia, anxiousness and even panic. But it made me feel. I'd love to see bastard cunting Ed fucking Sheeran do that, the cunt. 

Vomir proves entirely to me, that sometimes less really is more. Not for those of a weak disposition. Out on Crucial Blast. 

Japanese Torture Comedy Hour - Dolphin Meat

Japanese Torture Comedy Hour was a noise project that revolved around Scott Hull, J Randall and other related musicians, and eventually became a solo project for Randall in it's own right. Dolphin Meat is an hour-long improvised live performance (entitled "日本の拷問コメディアワー - EP#62") created entirely out of feedback loops and recorded to VHS tape (because, fuck it, why not?). I tried doing something similar about five or six years ago; bleeding feedback from mic to speaker in an infinite loop in an attempt to create effortless, endless manipulatable distortion, but I failed catastrophically, so there's a little bit of respect here to Randall for getting all of this out of a simple feedback loop (I just suck at noise, really).

All things considered however, I guess this falls more under the power electronics umbrella and isn't at all that harsh - for a bunch of batshit crazy improvised feedback loops it's actually quite listenable. You can stream the entire thing at Randall's label page Grindcore Karaoke, or even download it if noise is yer thing, like.

Water Torture - Pillbox

I've always loved Water Torture's mix of harsh noise experimentation and grinding bass terror, but Pillbox reaches new heights (or is that depths) of bassgrinding skullduggery, if you can imagine such a thing exists. I recently caught some bare-bones incarnation of this band on tour (kinda like The Melvins when they tour with a reduced line up) , which was missing the harsh noise element. This was okay live, but the harsh noise parts of Pillbox are really interesting, and provide an atmospheric foil to the claustrophobic bass'n'drums powerviolence. There's a particularly awesome harsh noise track a few minutes into the record, called "Product 1". Another, much more chilled ambient track "Creature Of Repitition" rather randomly reminds me of Blues For The Red Sun by Kyuss before it kicks in. 

Comparisons to Man Is The Bastard and/or Bastard Noise would be too easy, or possibly lazy of me, but if I'm entirely honest, it's hard to sound original when there already is a massively influential band that mixes bass/drums grindcore with harsh noise in existence. Water Torture does sound different though, which is actually quite something of a feat considering how similar both bands are in theory. Water Torture is kinda like the MITB for the current generation of crusties, grinders and hardcore kids into powerviolence.

When I caught 'em on tour, vinyl copies still hadn't come in, but you can pre-order with the label Nerve Altar who are putting it out. In the meantime, the entire thing is streaming on Bandcamp so do yourself a solid and listen to this shit, it's so brilliant.

Incest - Incest

Donno what the fuck is going on here...wow! It's like Aborym decided to do cybergrind and then do a collab with 7MON and Merzbow. When the longest track is 25 seconds long, and the entire EP a mere 10 songs in length, you know that what Incest has in store for you has just got to be painful. And it is. Sample-heavy drum machine grindcore mashes devastatingly with chunks of harsh noise and power electronics. I'm not sure if there is even a guitar in use here, or just some clever sampling.

Such a short release is gonna spawn a short review, so I'll just shut up an let Incest do the rest. Released through Vile Noise, a DIY scottish label.

JK Flesh - Posthuman

Seeing Justin Broadrick performing live as JK Flesh in Roadburn 2012 really opened up my eyes; it was like a dream coming true, the dirgy rhythms, haunting vocals and nasty guitar sound of Godflesh mashed head on into dubstep-style heavy bass and programmed drums. I didn't really know wether I should dance or punch somebody in the face. To be true, I did neither; I just stood there bobbing my head as the awesomeness washed over me, pummelling me into a pulp of useless flesh and deafening me past the point of ever comprehending music ever again. A slight overstatement, but a fantastic experience nonetheless. 

When I heard that his debut LP under this name would be coming out a short-while later, I almost jumped for joy. When the record dropped I was skint as fuck so I didn't get it initially, but I picked it up a few months later on my birthday. The true depth of the vinyl format is needed for something that sounds as massive as this; the pressing is excellent and does a cracking job of portraying the full bottomless sound of JK Flesh's aural assault. Things get off to a slow and creepy start with "Knuckledragger", but then "Idle Hands" chugs things up in true JK style. 

It's a fairly long record, considering the simplicity of the subject matter, but it doesn't make for a tiring listen; every song is perfect. Honestly, it doesn't get spun as much as my Godflesh records, but it's still pretty damn awesome. Released in 2012 by 3BY3 Records, and seemingly still available at a decent price (about £20, which isn't bad considering they are fairly limited (500 only)). Check it out and get one!

Life is Easy / Arseterror - Split Tape

Nearly a year in the works, Ohio's one man harsh noise and power electronics magician Arseterror finally meets the ongoing experiment Life is Easy on the format of split tape. featuring roughly 20 minutes of music from each artist; Arseterror first with the 20 minute maddening contribution, "Camptown Racist". Life is Easy contributes two unreleased drones from 2007 that have been festering away in the vaults for years.

Strictly limited to 15 physical copies, all hand made and assembled with disgusting hentai artwork and lovely jubbly pink ink! comes with a tape only bonus track "Josie", which can never be heard anywhere other than on this tape! I put this out myself on my part-time label Pointless Records - so if you want a copy just hit me up with a tradelist or drop me a message on Facebook. You can also add Pointless on Facebook here.

Stream the whole thing (barring "Josie") below.